23 reasons the RU community is the greatest

As the admin of RU Memes, I have the luxury of seeing all kinds of cool things fans want to share with the public. Last week, Lewis Mitchell sent us a video showing 23 random acts of kindness he did on his 23rd birthday. I don’t typically label myself a sentimental or emotional person, but if this doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you’ve got it worse than me.

Mitchell ends the video with a simple request to, “make a better world where we can help one another.”

Mitchell’s random acts of kindness are a video testament to what makes the RU community great. In the nearly two years I’ve run this page, I’ve watched the community get together to make events happen, grieve and help each other out in times of need. When the university makes the decision to cut sports programs, we flock en masse to show support for the students who got the short end of the stick regardless of whether we’ve been impacted or not.

RU students always get the negative reputation of being incredibly apathetic, but everything I’ve seen proves just the opposite. From the fact that there’s no place on Earth where everyone’s so consistently good about holding doors for each other to the careful eye on Lot Z, students show they care for one another in a variety of ways.

We’re not a bunch of drunks who didn’t make the grades for Virginia Tech. We’re not the apathy capital of Virginia. We have our own identity and it’s part of why it’s great to be in a small community where you’re more than just a face in the crowd.

Little things people do for each other have a ripple effect that sets the bar for how we should act, and RU shows it by bringing out the best in all of us. We never expected to be so pleasantly surprised by the amazing amount of good people can do in a college town that’s so famously and (so unjustly) seen as a party school. Anyone who prejudges RU clearly hasn’t seen the incredible Highlander spirit.

As we approach the second birthday of RU Memes, we couldn’t be happier to continue to be a part of this amazing community. Here’s to another great year, to Lewis Mitchell and to all of you.